Generation of a cost-effective cell line for support of high-throughput isolation of primary human B cells and monoclonal neutralizing antibodies.

The isolation of human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) arising from natural infection with human pathogens has proven to be a powerful technology, facilitating the understanding of the host response to infection at a molecular level. mAbs can reveal sites of vulnerability on pathogens and illuminate the biological function of the antigenic targets. Moreover, mAbs have the potential to be used directly for therapeutic applications such as passive delivery to prevent infection in susceptible target populations, and as treatment of established infection. The isolation of antigen-specific B cells from vaccine trials can also assist in deciphering whether the desired B cells are being targeted by a given vaccine. Several different processes have been developed to isolate mAbs, but all are generally labor-intensive and result in varying degrees of efficiency. Here, we describe the development of a cost-effective feeder cell line that stably expresses CD40-ligand, interleukin-2 and interleukin-21. Sorting of single B cells onto a layer of irradiated feeder cells sustained antibody production that permits functional screening of secreted antibodies in a manner that enables subsequent recovery of B cells for recombinant antibody cloning. As a proof of concept, we show that this approach can be used to isolate B cells that secrete antibodies that neutralize human papilloma virus (HPV) from participants of an HPV vaccine study.